Instinct Fail
by RenaRoo
Summary: Sometimes we are not quite as aware as we think we are. One-Shot.


I'm having another one of those days where I want to write something but I don't want it to be anything I've been working on like my multichapters… I suppose this would be why this storage of One-Shot ideas come in handy.

For those who do not know, I'm what we hope to be the one and only Turtlefreak121 and I have a one-shot update for you all. Hope you come to enjoy it!

TMNT © Mirage Studios  
story © Turtlefreak121

**Instinct Fail**

Leonardo likes to tell me that I have become rather predictable in my mannerisms, that as a ninja I should be constantly evolving my habits in order to out maneuver my enemies and to sharpen my defenses. He seems so sure that I am going to allow a nature of habit eliminate what should come natural to a ninja.

He thinks I lack instincts.

I suppose that is why my caring, devoted older brother sent Raphael to the junkyards with me on my bimonthly scavenges.

He seems about as amused as I am at the moment as he kicks around cans, becomes disgruntled at the poor condition of the few _Playboys _he can find, and overall begins to catch the corner of my eye with his shenanigans.

I sigh and push over a few collected bottle caps to reach the few battery wires I need for my latest project.

The noise is a little louder than I intended and Raph gives me a stoic glare before we both stiffen at a few growls.

A junkyard dog, mean and ugly, has made this spot quite hard my brothers and I to sift through in the past few months. The manager had finally wised up and realized that parts would always be missing from the trash wasteland and, thinking it was dirty low lives, bought himself one mean pooch.

I mean _The Omen_ mean! You did not mess with this dog. Period.

Raph snorts as it all calms down and he glares at me intensely. He was ready to leave here yesterday and I am still looking forward the to the findings of tomorrow. The fact that I probably alerted the Hound from Hell has not really assisted the difference of opinions either.

"Sorry," I breathe my apology before continuing my work.

He doesn't answer at first, looking around inattentively. He seems much more concerned with a separate issue, though I cannot tell if it is simply the junkyard guard dog worrying him or something else.

I tell myself it is the dog. It's the most logical conclusion.

"We need to hurry, can't you feel it coming?" he whispers to me.

I roll my eyes. The way he and the others act, one would think that instead of being well trained and intuitive we have psychic powers or something else equally ridiculous. They like to give their so-called instincts way too much credit for how they turned out in their stories.

"Yeah, but we can handle it," I respond as I gently catalog the wires I've taken off the transmission into my duffle bag.

He looks at me and I feel like he's peering through me for a moment. I am worried that something strange and unusual is happening that I am not catching on to, some instinctive call that my brother is relaying but I cannot even fathom.

I shake my head, though. It is absolutely ridiculous to believe that I have less of a power over my instincts than they do. We were raised the same, trained the same, and even have fought the same battles for the most part.

I have just as much instinct as them. Maybe I have even more and I do not like to brag about it or show off to them all the time.

"We should head out of here before it gets here, genius," he continues to press.

I grunt some in reply as I reach a convenient stack of light bulbs. The bulbs themselves are, of course, completely useless if they are in the junkyard but I am set to make substances out of anything available at the time.

"It will take a while for it to get around to this side of the junkyard, Raph," I assure him as I scavenge like a vulture once again.

He turns and raises his eye ridge at me before rubbing his chin. He does not seem to be too tickled with my statement for one reason or another. That is something that is quite puzzling on his own though I'd have to draw it out before I would pay any more attention than needed.

"You mean you can't feel that?" Raphael presses with me.

"The dog?" I ask skeptically before turning around to him. "Feel the dog coming? Is that what you mean?"

He gives me a funny look and cocks his head at about the time I notice the strike of electric blue across the heavy, black clouds above us. He simply stares there along with me as not long after the roll of ear shattering thunder follows the spontaneous blast.

At that moment, the clouds seem to open up themselves in order to allow a terrible and sudden free for all for the rain droplets it stores regularly.

Within moments I am soaked and racing for the nearest manhole along with Raph.

I could not believe that I did not sense how cold and pressurized it was during the voyage, even when Raph was so strongly hinting that I was overlooking my initial instincts once more. I growl in anger as I realize my wires are most likely ruined now in my drenched bag.

We stop once we are in the sewers and Raph laughs his head off at the predicament.

"I warned you," he reminds me all too easily.

I scowl, though it is more for myself than it is for my brother.

Leo was right, I do have the tendency to ignore basic instincts, if I have them homed in all that well to begin with.

In the words of internet surfing Michelangelo,

Instinct Fail.


End file.
